The Bodyguard's Bride-to-Be

by Amelia Autin

  The question was innocuous enough, but he was puzzled. Colonel Lermontov had never exhibited any interest in Marek’s personal life before, and it made him wonder. Before he could respond, though, the colonel added, “We were just discussing Miss Edwards’s bravery in council. The king announced he will hold a reception in her honor when she has fully recuperated, but he was unable to set a date because he does not know when that will be.”

  The tiny frown was erased from Marek’s forehead. “She is making great strides physically, sir. The worst of it is a broken wrist, but the doctor assured us it should heal with no lasting damage.”

  “And her memory? The king mentioned Miss Edwards has no recollection of the actual incident, which is perfectly understandable under the circumstances. But apparently she has lost more than just that day. Yes?”

  Chief councillor or not, Marek wasn’t about to discuss Tahra’s progress...or lack of it...with Colonel Lermontov. “We are hopeful her memory will return completely, sir...in God’s time.”

  The colonel nodded thoughtfully, then clapped Marek on the shoulder. “In God’s time. Yes, that is the approach to take. Please tell your fiancée the entire Privy Council is grateful to her and wishes her a speedy recovery.”

  “Will do, sir. And thank you for your concern.”

  * * *

  Once Marek reached his office, he spared a moment to think of Tahra. Of how desperately he yearned for her complete recovery, mentally as well as physically. Then he sternly reminded himself, “It will happen in God’s time, not mine,” and dragged his focus back to the file Major Stesha had given him.

  He read each document thoroughly in the order they were arranged in the file. He knew the major well enough to know that—since he’d anticipated Marek’s request—the file would be impeccably assembled.

  There was a small furrow between Marek’s brows when he finished, and he started reading again from the beginning, thinking he must have overlooked something. But when he reached the end the second time, he realized he hadn’t missed anything—but something was missing from the file. An explanation that should be there...but wasn’t.

  He thought about it for a minute, then picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. When a male voice answered, he said, “Alec? It is Marek.”

  “Hey, I was just thinking about calling you. How’s Tahra doing?”

  It took him a second to pull his mind off what was worrying him and say, “She is fine physically.” Marek had seen her that morning, and she was doing remarkably well for a woman who just a week ago had been in a coma. “But she still does not remember anything from the past eighteen months.”

  “Damn. I was hoping something would have clicked by now. We... I really miss her at work. The admin I’ve got on loan tries, I’ll give her that. But she’s not Tahra, not by a long shot.”

  Marek smiled. “Tahra would love to hear that...from you. I realize she is a security risk at the moment, since her memory is impaired, but you could call her, try to jog her memory in some way. I have tried, but...” He sighed.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Alec said slowly. “I’ll give it some thought.” Then he changed gears. “So what’s up? Why are you calling?”

  “I need to discuss something with Angelina. Is she there?”

  “She’s feeding the baby right now, and before you ask,” Alec said drily, “no, this isn’t something I can do for her, no matter how much we try to share parenting duties.”

  Marek knew from Alec’s tone of voice he was making a joke, but this wasn’t the kind of thing he felt comfortable discussing with his friend, joke or not. Of course he knew Angelina was a woman. And like every woman, she had...female parts. And of course he knew she’d just had a baby a few months ago. But for years he’d thought of Angelina as nothing but a fellow officer and a fighting man, and it disconcerted him to envision her doing something so...so womanly as nursing a baby.

  “Could you ask her to call me when she is free?” Marek asked now. “I am in my office and will be here for—” he checked his watch “—at least another half an hour.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The two men hung up, and Marek moved to the whiteboard. He picked up one of the colored markers and jotted down a few notes that were fresh in his mind. Then he picked up a different-colored marker for emphasis and added a few more notations. He was staring at the board, lost in thought, when the phone jangled behind him, and he answered it automatically. “Captain Zale.”

  A warm contralto sounded in his ear. “Marek? You asked me to call?”

  “Angelina.” He faced the whiteboard again, the furrow returning to between his brows. “I need to bounce an idea off you...about the Zakharian Liberation Front.”

  * * *

  Tahra was restless and bored. She’d read all the books in her suite. She’d flicked on the TV in her sitting room, but since her Zakharan wasn’t fluent enough to follow fast-paced dialogue and there were no English subtitles, she’d impatiently flicked it off again.

  She’d browsed the internet on her laptop, but most of the news stories she read assumed she knew what had taken place in the world during the past eighteen months...which she didn’t. The same went for all the posts on her Facebook feed. Frustrated, she’d logged off and closed her laptop with a decided click.

  She’d even tried calling Carly through the palace switchboard—Zakhar was six hours ahead of Washington, DC, so her sister should have been at work—but all she got was Carly’s work voice mail. A call to her sister’s cell phone also went right to voice mail.

  “Do you wish me to try again, Miss Edwards?” the switchboard operator had asked in her pretty English.

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway.”

  She paced her suite, which was luxurious in the extreme—the silk-covered walls were hung with paintings that made her think of wide vistas, and the delicate porcelain knickknacks scattered throughout the rooms would have been behind glass in most American homes—but there was only so much she could marvel at before familiarity bred...well, not contempt, but a kind of indifference.

  Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. She grabbed a light jacket from the closet and headed out. She didn’t know where she was going. All she knew was that with the walls closing in on her she couldn’t stay here another minute.

  * * *

  Marek had just hung up with Angelina when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the caller, but he answered anyway. “Captain Zale.”

  “Sorry to bother you, Captain. Private Markovich, perimeter security. I have a Miss Edwards here who was trying to leave the palace. My orders state she is not to—”

  “Yes, Private Markovich, those are your orders. Miss Edwards is not to leave the palace unless accompanied by one of five officers—Colonel Marianescu, Majors Kostya and Branko, Captain Mateja-Jones or myself. If she is not so accompanied, it is not safe for her to leave.”

  “That is the problem, sir. Miss Edwards is being...” Marek could hear Tahra’s voice in the background—low-pitched and restrained, but nevertheless upset.

  “I’m a guest, not a prisoner, and you have no right to keep me here!”

  Marek sighed internally but didn’t let the private hear him. He’d hoped Tahra would never have to know she was a prisoner...in essence. Now he would have to explain. “Keep her there, Private Markovich, by whatever means necessary. I will be with you shortly. Where exactly are you located?”

  * * *

  Tahra turned at the sound of a firm military tread on the marble floor behind her, relieved—still upset, but unaccountably relieved—to see Marek. She wanted to run to him but forced herself not to, because he’d ordered her held here at gunpoint, which the private guarding the door had told her...right before he’d drawn his weapon.

  “How dare you,” she began, her voice shaking as s
he tried to control her emotions.

  “In private, Tahra, if you please.”

  “I don’t please. You have no right to—”

  He gave her a stern look, but all he said was “Please.”

  Tahra hadn’t been this justifiably angry since the police had arrested her after she’d fought off her would-be rapist—a foreign diplomat who she hadn’t known was married when she’d first started dating him—sending him to the hospital with severe but not fatal wounds. And then, when her boss and the people she worked with at the State Department hadn’t believed her...when they’d taken the word of a lying, cheating SOB who’d concocted a fantastical tale that she’d lured him into a relationship and had stabbed him in a fit of rage when he refused to leave his wife for her, she’d been even more furious...and devastated.

  The memory of the incident flashed through her mind, and she almost told Marek exactly what he could do with his “please.” But then she remembered two things. First, she’d sworn she’d never trust another man again after the incident, but somehow Marek had overcome that, because she had to have trusted him if she’d agreed to marry him. And somehow he’d won her love. That meant he deserved the benefit of the doubt. He deserved a chance to explain—in private—why she was a prisoner in the palace. Second, she’d been raised a lady. And a lady never let her emotions control her actions in public. No matter the provocation.

  So she pressed her lips firmly together to keep her hot words unsaid. And when he held his right hand out to her, she took it.

  “Thank you, Private Markovich,” Marek told the guard, who’d already holstered his weapon. “You may return to your post.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  When they were alone, Marek brought her left hand up to his cheek and held it there for a moment. “Thank you.”

  She struggled to find words she could say to him. “I’m still upset. You ordered him to hold me at gunpoint!”

  He turned his face so he could press his lips into her palm. Briefly. Then he let her hand go. “I did not actually use those words. But yes, I did tell him to use whatever means necessary.”

  Only one word came to mind. “Why?”

  He glanced around the corridor. “Not here. Let us return to your suite and I will try to explain.”

  It took Marek less time to take Tahra back than it had taken her to get here—partly because he didn’t make a false turn and have to wend his way backward, as she’d done. Once the door to her suite closed behind them, she confronted him again. “Why?”

  “Because you are a witness.”

  She gaped at him. “I’m a prisoner because I’m a witness?”

  “A witness who is in danger. Have you never heard of protective custody?”

  “Yes, but...” Her mind a whirl, she snatched at the first complete thought that came to her. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you say I’m being housed in the palace for the time being? That makes it sound as if I have a choice.”

  “I would have spared you this, maris—”

  “Stop it! Just stop it!” When his expression turned puzzled, she grabbed onto her temper and held tight, forcing her voice lower. “Stop protecting me. I’m not a half-wit and I’m not five years old. I don’t want you to ‘spare’ me, I want you to treat me as an equal.”

  “You ask the impossible. This is who I am. You must take me as I am, or...”

  “Or what?” she asked softly, her heart aching for him...and for herself. “Or what?”

  “Set me free.”

  “Set you free?” Tahra shook her head slowly. “I’m not the one holding you prisoner. You’re doing it to yourself. But not the way you’re doing it to me.”

  “I am not...you do not understand. It is not my decree that holds you here, it is the king’s.”

  “But you agree with it, don’t you?” When he didn’t answer, she insisted, “Don’t you?”

  “Yes.” The word was forced through clenched teeth.

  “I can’t live that way. I can’t. I’m not talking about protective custody. I get that I’m a witness. I’m talking about someone making decisions about what’s best for me. Someone trying to shield me from life. I’ve lived that way before, and it’s no good. Can’t you see that? It’s not good for me. Carly...”

  She gulped, because she loved her sister more than anything, and what she was about to say seemed a betrayal of that love, but... “I told you before, Carly always protected me. Smoothed my path in life. Shielded me from whatever she could. She made the decisions—what I should focus on in high school, what college I should attend, what I should major in, even what career was best for me. And I let her. I just...let her. She wasn’t doing it to hurt me—Carly would never deliberately hurt me. But she was hurting me by never letting me fall. Never letting me pick myself up. Never letting me make bad decisions so I could learn from them. She shielded me my entire life...until the one time she wasn’t there. And I almost crashed and burned.”

  Tahra laughed a little hysterically at the bewildered look Marek gave her when she uttered the last sentence. “It’s an American expression,” she explained. “Plane crash? Fireball? I know it sounds insensitive, but it’s not meant to be.”

  She drew a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t want to be loved. I do. I want that more than anything. But I also need to know I’m strong enough to get back up after I’ve been knocked down. I’m not a little girl, I’m a woman. If you love me, love me. Not someone who always needs to be sheltered from life. Love someone who can stand at your side and carry her share of the load. Someone who will protect you, if necessary. Love me, but let me be that woman. Please.”

  Chapter 9

  Marek tried to follow what Tahra was saying, but every word seemed an indictment of him. Of his love. All he could hear was her saying his love was hurting her somehow. And that sliced right to the bone, because hurting her was the last thing he ever wanted to do. Couldn’t she see that? Couldn’t she understand that all he wanted to do was protect her? Shelter her? Shield her? Spare her?

  Cripple her.

  The realization stunned him, but as soon as the thought coalesced in his brain he couldn’t deny it. She is right. Tahra is right and I am wrong. I have not loved her the way she needed me to love her. Selfish love, not selfless. Oh, God, what have I done?

  He tried to speak, but self-condemnation closed his throat, and when he didn’t answer, she added quietly, “You said I had a warrior’s heart. If you truly believe that, then help me believe it, too. I need to know I can stand on my own before I can stand at your side.”

  Could he do it? Could he sit back and let Tahra stumble and fall and not reach out a hand to help her? Even if it was what she wanted, what she needed? Could he do it?

  “I cannot promise,” he said in a low voice, needing to be honest with her. He took her left hand in his, staring at his engagement ring there. Thinking of what it symbolized. “But I will try. Because I do love you, Tahra. More than I can ever express. So I will try to love you the way you need me to love you...and not the way I want to love you.”

  She gazed up at him, suddenly misty-eyed. “That’s all I’m asking,” she whispered. She moved until she was standing so close he could feel her trembling. “I’ll be honest—I’m terrified I’ll fail. That’s why I need you to believe in me. So I can believe in myself.”

  He slid his arms around her waist and drew her into his embrace, but he didn’t kiss her. He pressed her head against his shoulder and stroked her dark head, a new kind of love welling up in him. Love mixed with renewed admiration for her courage. Not just the physical courage she’d displayed a week ago, but the emotional courage to demand the best of herself...now and always.

  “You do have a warrior’s heart, mariskya. Never doubt it...and never doubt yourself.”

  * * *

  The apart
ment building had been built at the dawn of the previous century and had been upgraded numerous times to bring it up to code—electrical wiring, natural gas lines, plumbing, fire alarms and reinforced steel fire doors in the stairwells. It stood on a rise overlooking the river winding its way through Drago, with an excellent view of the royal palace in the distance. The perspective had in some ways made up for its inconveniences, including the less-than-reliable boilers that sometimes but not always provided hot water for the tenants and the elevator that broke down with frustrating regularity, turning the building into an eight-story walk-up.

  Until a year ago the residents had all been native-born Zakharians. But over the past twelve months almost half of the tenants had sacrificed the views for more reliable conveniences, opening up an increasing number of apartments to the latest wave of immigrants...many of whose rents were fully or partially subsidized by the king and the Zakharian government on a temporary basis until they were fully assimilated.

  The building was mostly empty in the daytime. Many of the immigrant tenants worked at least one job and sometimes two to get ahead. And their children attended school and after-school study halls to catch up with their age groups and to learn their adopted language as quickly as possible. Even the stay-at-home mothers were usually out and about during the day—shopping or taking their children to the parks and museums that abounded in Drago. But the sun had set hours ago, and all the residents were fast asleep.

  Three men dressed all in black, carrying knapsacks and duffel bags, slipped from the shadows through the unlocked front door into the lobby. Draconian laws on the books that Zakharian judges and juries never hesitated to apply in criminal trials made electronic security unnecessary in Drago for the most part.

  No one saw the three men descend the staircase into the bowels of the building or push open the unlocked boiler room door. No one saw them swiftly unpack their duffel bags and knapsacks.

  No one saw one man lay charges around the room, run detonating cords to a central device or glance at his watch to set the timer, as the other two propped open the fire doors at the basement level, then climbed the stairways and did the same with the fire doors on each subsequent landing.